Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, spent much of 2026 under pressure amid an overall market downturn. The company’s market capitalization was approximately $230 billion.
$ETH It reached an all-time high of $4,953 on August 24, 2025. It has since fallen to $1,888, a drop of about 62% from its all-time high.
Separately, $ETH On a year-to-date basis, it was still down 36%.
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Despite problems with the operation of the token, activity across the Ethereum network continued to grow.
According to Alpharactal data, the number of daily transactions has remained above 2.5 million for most of the recent period. At the time of writing, the network had processed 2.56 million transactions.
By comparison, for most of last year, the number of daily transactions remained below 1.5 million.
Even when Ethereum reached its all-time high in August, the network was processing around 1.6 million transactions every day.
Speaking on the development, Joanne Wesson of Alpharaktal cited these fundamentals as the main reason why Ethereum is trading well below its fair value. He pointed out:
We may be bearish on price, but we cannot be bearish on blockchain fundamentals or actual adoption.
Wesson expects the same fundamentals to drive Ethereum’s outperformance in the next market cycle, a move he expects to play out over “the next two to three years.”
Will more capital enter Ethereum?
A closer look shows that Ethereum is still drawing capital into its ecosystem despite the token’s downturn in the market.
DeFiLlama data shows that the total amount locked on the blockchain is rising as investors pump capital into the network. From July 1 to date, TVL has absorbed $4.92 billion in new locked capital.
Capital lock-ups of this size typically reflect long-term optimism about price performance, and the same group also earns the offered APY.
The number of daily active users has skyrocketed with inflows, indicating an increase in on-chain activity and reinforcing Ethereum’s role as a settlement layer for most transactions on-chain. Artemis reported its latest daily active user count reached 581,000, one of the highest numbers since late June.
Continued growth in daily transactions, TVL, and daily active users is likely to strengthen the underlying demand for Ethereum.
Validator’s conviction further improves prospects
AMBCrypto recently reported that zero exit queues from Ethereum validators could be another factor allowing the asset to rise in price.
The validator is $ETH On networks, decisions are usually tied to a long-term perspective. This behavior is a break from the pattern seen at the peak of the market crash, when the validator exit queue was around 2.6 million people. $ETH Then he waited for 44 days.
Adding weight to this change, the number of validators looking to commit their tokens to the blockchain has surged to approximately 2.52 million. $ETHthere is a waiting period of 43 days.
Final summary
- The increase in Ethereum network activity is due to $ETHhas fallen 36% since the beginning of the year.
- As Ethereum’s exit queue approaches zero, the demand for validators has increased.
